Emmanuel Macron has trumpeted his reindustrialization policy at Dunkirk, announcing huge foreign investment in batteries totaling 6.7 billion euros and 4,700 jobs, while also taking up his controversial call for a “pause” from new European environmental standards. . “The mother of battles begins now”, launched the Head of State at the Aluminum Dunkerque factory.
As for the announcements, the Taiwanese group ProLogium will install in the northern city, erected next to the Elysée as a “symbol” of an industrial awakening in France, a “huge electric battery factory” for an investment of 5,200 million and the forecast creation of 3,000 direct jobs, greeted the president. The company had already unveiled its project, but Emmanuel Macron reserved another announcement: the Chinese XTC and the French Orano will invest 1,500 million euros and create 1,700 jobs in a site linked to lithium batteries, still in Dunkirk. Three other “gigafactory” projects had already been announced in northern France, gradually transforming this land, in a long process of deindustrialization, into an electric valley in France.
Proof that the competition is tough, the Swedish group Northvolt has confirmed the installation of a gigantic electric battery factory in Germany. ProLogium CEO Vincent Yang acknowledged that his company once considered investing on the other side of the Atlantic. “The United States has the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act), very good subsidies,” he told some journalists in reference to the colossal public aid plan that Joe Biden wants to support the American industry in favor of the energy transition that he imposes. climate change. But the Taiwanese ultimately chose France, particularly for its nuclear power. “We need good, stable, cheap and green electricity,” he explained.
“I prefer factories that meet our European standards”
Serum for Emmanuel Macron, who sees in it the demonstration of the merits of his “electric vehicle strategy” and nuclear energy. And that he has built his plan to speed up the country’s reindustrialization, presented this week, precisely to keep up with Washington as well as Chinese competition. At the forefront of Europe responding to these proactive, if not protectionist policies, the president unveiled several measures on Thursday aimed at supporting French industry while greening it: a new tax credit for the production of batteries, wind turbines or panels solar that supposedly will generate 20,000 million euros of investment by 2030, and a review of the bonus for the purchase of an electric car so that it indirectly points to “Made in Europe”.
But he also assumed in Dunkirk his call the day before for a regulatory “pause” on the new European environmental standards, which had been denounced in particular by elected environmentalists. “Let’s apply it and go to the end” of the European Union’s Green Deal, “but let’s not add more,” he said, in the name of “stability” in the rules. “I prefer the factories that comply with our European standards, which are the best, to which they still want to add standards” and risk “not having any more factories”, the president insisted.
The projects announced on Friday are part of a larger package to be unveiled on the occasion of the sixth edition, on Monday in Versailles, of the “Choose France” summit launched by the president in 2018 to attract foreign projects. The Élysée is already announcing a “record” edition, beyond ten billion euros. With new investments in batteries, the projects attracted since 2017 in Dunkirk will allow the creation or maintenance of about 20,000 jobs in ten years while the city has lost about 6,000 industrial jobs in 20 years, argues Emmanuel Macron.
“There is no possibility of reindustrializing the country”
Like every trip lately, the head of state was expected by 200 to 300 demonstrators, sometimes with pans. Opponents of his pension reform, even when he tries to turn the page on this crisis by reinvesting in the economic field. But also employees of Valdunes, the last manufacturer in France of train wheels, made known last week by its Chinese shareholder.
With work jackets and helmets on their heads, they had come to show “that they don’t want to die like this,” Olivier Bournisien, method manager at the forge, told AFP. “The Minister of Industry will be by his side to find a buyer and help”, promised the Head of State in an interview with the voice of the north posted in the afternoon. “It is not because we are creating jobs on the sidelines that we are not going to fight until the last quarter of an hour for Valdunes.” The rally was marred by tensions with the imposing force of law enforcement deployed to keep them at a great distance.
always in the voice of the north, the president punctures the programs of the oppositions. “I appeal to the responsibility of the extremes that today deplore the effects of those who appreciate the causes. If we apply the program of the LFI and the RN, the deindustrialization is assured”. He even declares: “If we apply Madame Le Pen’s program, there is no possibility of reindustrializing the country. With retirement at 60, with VAT on consumers, the country will be ruined.”
Source: BFM TV
